How to install Ice Cream Sandwich ICS 4.0 on LG P500

Android latest offering for smartphone comes as Android 4.0 code name Ice Cream Sandwich ICS is offered on the new smartphones by different manufacturers. Old device owners need to wait for their Phone manufacturers to release a update for their phones which usually takes lot of time. Sometime it can be months or even a year before a new major update to Android OS for most smartphone arrives.

SUMMARY

Also, Not every phone can be upgraded to Ice cream sandwich. Most old devices wont be getting a upgrade to ICS anytime in future as manufacturers have declined to support that citing reasons like low spec hardware on these phones. But thanks to open source developers, hackers etc, its possible to have ICS on old devices too.

Today we will talk about one such device LG P500 which will not get a ICS upgrade officially, but a ICS port of CyanogenMod 9 by lupohirp is available at XDA forums and can be installed on LG P500 smartphone.

Checkout the updated post with latest ICS ROM with Working Camera here.

What Doesn’t Work

This ROM is still in beta and hence you can encounter bugs, not to stable performance and unknown hiccups too. Lets talk about what doesn’t Works in this ROM:

Camera.

Some Paid Apps.

As said above, Camera doesn’t work after you successfully flash this ROM on your Phone. So if you use your phone Camera often you should stay away from this ICS port ROM. Also, Keep in mind that this ROM is only for new basebands and if you are on old baseband, then you must flash your phone to new baseband to make Data and GSM to work.

We will talk about how to distinguish if you are on old or new baseband. We will also talk about how to flash your phone to new baseband.

For anyone who wish to give it a try must remember that doing it incorrectly may brick your Phone and convert into a paper weight. So read everything carefully before flashing this ROM on your phone.

Install Ice Cream Sandwich ICS ROM on LG P500

I will keep updating this post. You must download the ROM files from the latest update.

Update 5: Another KANG build is released and ROM is almost stable. Everything works almost except the Camera preview and few other hiccups like FC (Force close) crashes with Gallery etc.

Update 4:KANG TEST BUILD is being uploaded at the XDA Thread and it comes with the following fixes:

Based on pure CM-Patches

Browser Rendering/ Crash Fixed

Enabled EXT Partition Support in kernel

Data Counter/ Usage Fixed

Applications Space Fixed (200MB Available)

Video Lags In Youtube Fixed (HQ videos still lag)

You can download the cm-p500-pasquale-KANG.zip from the mediafire link posted in the XDA thread.

Update 3: Another update is available now and Camera works with this update. You can download Beta4cam.zip from the XDA Thread and flash it. The camera works well, with effects and everything but no preview.

Update2: Beta 4 has been released, but no changelog has been provided. You can download BETA4-TESTING.ZIP from the link provided at the XDA Thread.

Download the ROM zip file beta_testing.zip (91.2 MB) from here. You will need the Google Apps file too after flashing the ROM. You can get Gapps V7.1 (FOR ICS 4.0.3)here.

I have installed it on my Phone and everything works great except the Camera. 🙂

Update1: They have released a third beta of the ROM with Full Hardware Acceleration.

BETA3

Full OPENGL rendering

Mic fixed

Enabled Genlock support in kernel for camera

CPU set on boot fixed

Put the files on your SD Card’s main folder for easy navigation since the recovery mode is tough to navigate with hard keys.

Your phone must be rooted and you must have ClockworkMod installed on your smartphone to boot your phone into your recovery Mode.

After you boot in recovery mode, use your Volume key at right side of phone to scroll up and down. You need to clear few settings before you can flash to your phone to the new ROM.

Select the ROM (the same file that you just downloaded, beta_testing.zip) to install – your ROM will begin to install.

Once installed press the back button few times to go back to the main screen of Clockwork Recovery.Choose reboot system now.

After the install is done, you must reboot the phone and then install the Gapps applications again by booting into Recovery mode by the same method as described above for flashing the ROM.

Random Offset Error

During the flashing of ICS ROM, you may get a “Random offset xxxx” error. You should not worry about it. This is not an error message at all, but a safety feature implemented in ICS. More details here.

No GSM Network

After flashing the ICS ROM if your phone is unable to connect your GSM Network, this means that your phone was on Old baseband and you must flash it to new baseband.

P500-v20G-baseband.7z (New Baseband) is for official v20[abdg…] ROMs and ROMs based upon it (e.g., GingerLOL, v20G stock ROM, customized v20G ROM, 0x0v3rfl0w ROM and GingerCriccoROM).

P500-v10E-baseband.7z (Old Baseband) is for all other ROMs.

Details about how to flash your phone to new baseband are detailed here.

If the problem of no network continued even after flashing to new baseband, then you should go to your Mobile Network settings and select “use only 2G Network” there. It will solve the issue for sure provided you are on new baseband.

Flash to new Kernel for better stability

The kernel with the ROM is a bit unstable and you can flash to a new kernel for a better stablity of the ICS ROM. At the moment I am using the Franco Kernel and for me its almost stable now. You can get the Franco Kernel here.

PS: Special thanks to Ashwin who helped me during this install with all the links and shared his knowledge. Screenshots used here too are taken using his phone.

Related

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Founder- Editor at Androidpure : A Mechanical Design Engineer by profession, but passionate about Computers, software and anything that helps to learn something new or different. Love to do things which i don't know and dive into unknown territories.

Update: Beta 4 of the ICS ROM has been released. The post is updated with the download details. Check it out. 🙂

rejith

hi i m using lg p500 Android version 2.3.4….i try to install Android ics but network is not coming please help me……………..

Avinash

Which ROM you installed? Beta2? or the latest Kang version?

If its beta 2 or any other version than the latest version, try changing the mobile network settings to “use only 2G networks”.

It may work. If it doesn’t, try re-flashing the latest Kang version with full wipe i.e “reset to default>> wipe cache>> wipe dalvik cache”.

rejith

hi i am using Mod Version #forever r1.6.15…………….Kernal version.v.16.1

Avinash

As far as I can guess, Network is not coming when you install ICS on your existing #forever r1.6.15 ROM? IF thats the case, please check if you are having the old baseband. I have talked about how to check the baseband in the post. The ICS ROM is for new baseband only and if you are using the old baseband, network issues will arise. You need to flash to new baseband. Check the post on how to do that.

OR

If you are asking about NO network on your existing #forever r1.6.15 ROM, you must check the #forever r1.6.15 development thread on how to resolve it as I haven’t tested it.

Avinash

As far as I can guess, Network is not coming when you install ICS on your existing #forever r1.6.15 ROM? IF thats the case, please check if you are having the old baseband. I have talked about how to check the baseband in the post. The ICS ROM is for new baseband only and if you are using the old baseband, network issues will arise. You need to flash to new baseband. Check the post on how to do that.

OR

If you are asking about NO network on your existing #forever r1.6.15 ROM, you must check the #forever r1.6.15 development thread on how to resolve it as I haven’t tested it.

Sam

Hi Avinash,

This is Sam from Hyderabad. Can you let me know the step-by-step procedure of upgrading LGP500 2.3.3 to 4.0 Ice cream Sandwich? It would be greatly appreciated! I am computer very much savvy person. Still need little clarity on what I am doing to avoid corrupting existing system files on my Phone. Hope you will understand?

Thanks & Regards
SAM.

Avinash

@Sam,

I have already provided step by step procedure except the procedure to root your LG P500 and procedure to install Recovery. That can be easily found using Google.

You just need to root your device, install Custom recovery and then follow the steps in the post.

Also, Make sure you are on new baseband as the ICS ROM only support new baseband. Post above already talks about how to find on which baseband you are on.

Caution: – Dont try this unless you are sure of what you are doing. It may brick your device if something wrong happens during flashing.

Sam

Okay! I will try and let you know how it goes on my phone experimenting it. If I see any issues I’ll get back to you for support.

Thanks Avinash

Sam

Hey Avinash,

I have followed everything perfectly as per the given instructions above…. I have succesfully installed everything and my phone is working just fine! except Camera? New kernal version looks good after installing it! GSM is working good with old baseband. Please update me when you make ICS stable version to work all the features on LGP500. Here is my e-mail address rs7108@gmail.com I really appreciate you and your team doing a great job for us!

Glad to hear that its working fine on your Phone. Regarding Camera, we need to wait more with no Guarantee that it will work.

On side note, its not me or my team that developed this ROM. This ICS ROM for LG P500 is result of hard work done by developers as mentioned in the thread above. I am just passing this information to you. 🙂

Sam

Perhaps, you people are helping us to find an answer on what we are seeking for! However, I have observed one backdrop again? Battery is Draining very fast than before :(? I am using 2g Internet. I have not set any Live Wallpaper. Waiting for your reply?

Try using a battery saving app like battery defender or just disable background data sync to get a much better battery life. I am using it on my phone and battery life is much better than the Gingerbread. 🙂

Sam

I am very much computer savvy!

RepearXK

Hi i did everything but my baseband says that it is unknown and my status bar says no service and t didnt ask for my pin code when it started

Avinash

If you flashed it and getting no signal and your baseband is showing unknown, it means that you were on old baseband before you flashed the ICS ROM. You need to flash to new baseband if you are on old baseband as ICS ROM for LG P500 above doesnt support old baseband.

Check the post on how to flash to new baseband.

Disclaimer: – Do it only if you know what you are doing. Anything wrong may brick your device.

hi bro i am using lg p500 plz can u tell me how to update this lgp500 ha .
And i want to know wat is the problem with this mobile
ha

richardk

I followed the above instructions and upgraded my LG-P500AT-00-V20c-505-XX-SEP-23-2011+0 from V2.3.3 to V4.0.4 successfully last night.

The CyanogenMod ROM version is :
The Google Application is :

The followings are woring fine :
2G/3G Data Internet access with Android Browser
Google Gmail
Google Maps
Youtube
WiFi internet access
Gallery to view pictures and play movies
Messaging to send SMS
Apollo to play music
PlayStore to download & install APKs
Contacts(changed name to People in ICS)
Camera to take photos
Voice Dialer
News and weather

X1.
However, use the Camera to take movies seems NOT working. The video files cannot be played by Gallery. The Video File size seems too small. Any adv ??

X2. In order to turn on the phone, I have to press the Power Button 3 Times (approx. 1s interval) . Is it a bug or normal ?

Any way , Thanks for the great effort of all developers to make this ROM successful !!

Note: The ROM Manager V5.0.2.0 dispappered after upgrading to ICS. However, u can still boot in ClockworkMode recovery mode by pressing the pwr + vol- + home key.

-ricky-

richardk

the ROM version is : cm-9-20120827-UNOFFICIAL-p500.zip

richardk

In regarding to problem X1, I just download & install the MX player and it can play the movie created by the phone’s Camera .
Cheers n regards,

-ricky-

Avinash

Thank you Ricky for the detailed feedback on the ROM. 🙂

richadk

In regarding to Problem X2,
I actually find out that u have to press and hold the PWR button for 18-20 seconds in order to turn on the phone. Previous Gingerbread version only requires to press 5-7 seconds.

-ricky-

richadk

The Google Apps ZIP file is :

-ricky-

richadk

Google Apps ZIP file is :

richadk

In regarding to X1,

the Camera records movie in mp4 format , but uses H263 instead of H264 Video codec. Also the frame rate is 6 frame/s . In Gingerbread 2.3.3, it was using H264 codec and frame rate is 17 frame/s.
So far, I hope it will be improved for ongoing new builts.

THis Custom ROM is for LG P500 only, but its a custom ROM and not the one officially released by LG. Officially, P500 will have GB 2.3 only. But if you have rooted your phone and wana test it, you can flash the Custom Rom. It is almost perfect except few issues.